Jobs envies Gates; Gates envies Jobs

In a mostly staid interview Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher did with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, one question elicited two very different, and very striking responses:

Question from the audience: You approached the same opportunity so very differently. What did you learn about running your own business that you wished you had thought of sooner or thought of first by watching the other guy?

Mr. Gates: I’d give a lot to have Steve’s taste — in terms of intuitive taste, both for people and products. We sat in Mac product reviews where there were questions about software choices, how things would be done, that I viewed as an engineering question — that’s just how my mind works. And I’d see Steve make the decision based on a sense of people and product that is even hard for me to explain. The way he does things is just different, and I think it’s magical.

Mr. Jobs: Because Woz and I started the company based on doing the whole banana, we weren’t so good at partnering with people. And, you know, actually, the funny thing is, Microsoft’s one of the few companies we were able to partner with that actually worked for both companies. And we weren’t so good at that, where Bill and Microsoft were really good at it because they didn’t make the whole thing in the early days, and they learned how to partner with people really well.

And I think if Apple could have had a little more of that in its DNA, it would have served it extremely well. And I don’t think Apple learned that until a few decades later.

Gates has no sense of taste. Jobs has no sense of collaboration. And their companies have suffered (and succeeded) based on these failings for three decades.

Fascinating, what a CEO’s personality can do to and for a company.